Michael Hicks Beach, 'A Scagliola Apollo'

Carlo Pellegrini ('Ape') presents Michael Hicks Beach, Conservative MP and rising political star, leaning with studied ease against a decorative lectern or dispatch box topped with a gilded mace—emblems of parliamentary authority. Dressed in a black frock coat with white cravat, the figure is elongated in Pellegrini's characteristic manner, emphasizing languid self-possession over intellectual weight. The caption, 'A scagliola apollo,' is a pointed joke: scagliola is imitation marble, handsome but not the genuine article. Hicks Beach was then climbing fast—he would become Chief Secretary for Ireland within two years—and Vanity Fair's editors clearly found his polished surface more convincing than his substance. No ethnic caricature is present; the humor is purely social and political.